There are few events in the noise and avant electronics social calendar that can compare the annual No Fun Festival in New York City. The size and scope of the annual three-day festival, which features the crème de la crème of experimental music from around the world, is awe-inspiring — or terror-inducing, depending on your point of view. If you can’t make the trek down to New York to mix and mingle with the likes of krautrock luminaries Cluster and Norwegian noise legend Lasse Marhaug, don’t despair: a number of festival performers will be passing through town, so you can still have a little No Fun without leaving Boston.

Known for his spasmodic mix of extreme electronics, gibbering vocals, and body-centric noise (consider yourself warned), the Swiss performance artist SUDDEN INFANT is aptly named. In a show at the Piano Craft Guild, he’s paired with local sax-trumpet improvisers NMPERIGN for what should be an unusual set. They’ll be joined by Australian electronic musicians WILL GUTHRIE and NEWTON ARMSTRONG and a nattily dressed local improv trio, the EPICUREANS.

Their name not withstanding, the lo-fi synth duo DEMONS, who play P.A.’s on Wednesday, are more eerie than frightening. With their fondness for squirbly, swooping analog synths, the duo of Steve Kenney and WOLF EYES’ Nate Young seem to be channeling the spirits of the late Louis and Bebe Barron (she died just this past April 20) of Forbidden Planet fame. The show also features French noise artist HELICOPTER SANGALANTE, Michigan noisenik SICK LLAMA, and the strangely entertaining MOSHI MOSHI I AM THE DECIDER, which member and show organizer Angela Sawyer describes succinctly as “an all-bad-sounds band.”

ASSAULT AND BATTERIES | February 20, 2009 After a brief stint in Pittsburgh, guitarist and electronic musician GEOFF MULLEN is back in his native Rhode Island, and the New England music scene is so much the better for it.

SO MUCH IN STORE | February 10, 2009 Australia's the NECKS are the sort of band who thwart classification.

A COMPROVISATIONAL WHAT? | February 02, 2009 Local saxophonist and electronic-musician JORRIT DIJKSTRA combines a variety of styles ranging from jazz to electro-acoustic improv and noise to create his own emotive and often idiosyncratic music.

WINTRY MIX | January 26, 2009 There are so many interesting and unusual musical happenings this week, it's almost more than this little column can bear.